


hospice care

by effies_tardis



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: F/M, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-06-08
Packaged: 2018-04-03 11:06:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4098730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/effies_tardis/pseuds/effies_tardis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben feels like he’s watching the sun set. / In which Leslie has terminal cancer, and they cope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hospice care

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea how to write short, happy things. Mega thanks to Nat, who has been half my beta and half my partner in fangirling over this beautiful couple.

 “Come on, who first?”

“Leslie, this is morbid.”

She dances in her underwear, a bottle of tequila in her hands, her smile drunk and her eyes flashing something provocative at Ben. Leaning forward just a bit as she struggles to climb into their hotel bed, she slurs, “Come on. Baby, please.”

Ben lets out a laugh when she settles herself into his lap, downing the rest of the tequila before knocking her head into his. He finds his hand full of blonde curls and his mouth fixated on hers, and she breathes baby, please and he feels like dying, really, feels like collapsing all of him into all of her.

 “Me,” he says. “I’ll be the first to go.”

“It’s only fitting,” she agrees, her laugh lacing through her words, knotting her fingers together behind his neck. “I have so much going for me.”

He rolls his eyes. “Nice to know my wife wants me to die first.”

“I only want you for your hefty life insurance, Mr. City Manager,” she confirms, her voice taking up something shrill and theatrical. But in a whisper, she says, “No, Ben, if I had the choice, I’d go first. But you’re older and everyone knows how healthy of a lifestyle I have chosen to lead.”

The last part is a joke, probably, but Ben doesn’t care, just kisses her like she’s the sun and he’s desperate for heat — “I’ll go first,” he says, and it’s final, and it’s clear: he wouldn’t want to live without her.

Even Leslie Knope could not question that.

.

This is what Ben will remember: the waiting room, sterile and empty, all white and pastel and smelling chiefly of antiseptic and air freshener; the coffee table, covered with overused magazines and water rings and someone's car keys they must've left behind; Leslie, looking scared for the first time in her life, her hands shaking in his, her lips moving at record speeds as she chatters non stop about how the Unity Concert is still behind and if this doesn't make it, what will become of her career? 

But mostly Ben will remember how he had this insane hope that everything was going to be alright. That this is just him panicking and Leslie's respiratory system being weird and that this — _this_ is a routine check up, just Leslie going to the doctor like she usually does. That this is him and Leslie, and nothing bad ever happens to them when they're together.

Leslie gives him a quick squeeze of the hand when they are called in. It's not enough to quell his anxieties.

.

Ben doesn't really remember the diagnosis. 

He stares at the doctor like she had just told him that he has to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders for the rest of his life. Words float back to him, medical terms he only knows from that Grey's Anatomy show Leslie watches, things like _non-small cell lung cancer_ , things like _inoperable_ and _incurable_ , things like _terminal_. The doctor keep apologizing, but it’s half-didactic and half-rehearsed, and Ben’s mind spins.

Ben doesn't know what to say.

And the funny thing is, his reaction is nothing he'd expect. There’s no grand display of emotion. He doesn’t fall to his knees, doesn’t burst into tears, doesn’t do anything. He doesn't  _feel_  anything, and all of his thoughts are rendered a jumbled mess; he can't even think straight, much less form coherent sentences. So he looks to his wife for help much like he's done before and is startled to find that she's lost too.

"I don't smoke," Leslie whispers. "I know no one who smokes."

The doctor jumps to address this. "Non-small cell lung cancer does not necessarily arise from smoking. Other factors may—"

Ben cuts in, his mouth dry like the Sahara and his hands still on his knees, "How long?"

Leslie winces all too visibly. He doesn't know how to apologize for that.

The doctor looks uncomfortable. "It all depends. We have to perform a PET scan to see if the cancer has metastasized. Where it's gone, what stage it's in. From there, we can determine how long—"

"Okay," Leslie says, nodding her head at once. She glances at Ben with glassy eyes and repeats, "Okay, let's do it. I want to know how long I have.”

.

The results of the PET scan come in such bright and lovely colors that Ben has to remember that seeing his wife’s body covered in rainbow is a bad thing.

Leslie settles to his side and drags her finger down the middle of her chest, circling the area in which her lungs burn brightly with red light. When he summons the courage to finally look at her, she’s already buried her face into his chest and shoved her hands into the pockets of his jacket.

“Let’s go home,” she says, and her voice is tired and watery and less of Leslie Knope but more of a defeated woman and those two are never the same.

Ben feels like he’s watching the sun set.

.

Six months. That's all.

.

They're lying in bed at three in the afternoon when Leslie starts talking about chance.

"We have better luck than most people, like look at our track record. We make it every time. Plus, look at it this way... two percent is better than the lottery, Ben. And we bet on that all the time. What makes this any different?"

_ Because I already won you. _

_ Because I'd rather lose everything than lose you. _

He says none of these things, if only because he doesn't know how, doesn't know if her irrational hope is just something to keep her grounded. So Ben just tightens his hold around her waist and sinks his lips into her hair as though she's all he needs to consume for the rest of his life. And for all he knows, she is.

She covers his hands with hers and pushes herself closer to him, making herself smaller than she really is, as if she is hiding herself from monsters she cannot fight.

Grief hits the hardest when it is nascent, he soon finds out. Because Leslie starts to cry like the news is just occurring to her, and it's all he can do to wait it out and hug her tighter.

"We'll be okay, Leslie," he tells her, his forehead hard against her neck. "We'll be okay. I promise."

This, he is unsure he can believe.

.

The first person they tell is Jerry, as it turns out.

It's mostly an accident. Ben and Leslie shuffle through City Hall, slipping into corridors that a little over a year ago, they were traipsing through with much different intentions. He holds onto her tight, reigning her in whenever she strays too far, clinging onto her like she'll disappear right then and there.

A cough. Leslie releases his hand to press a napkin to her mouth. He doesn't have to see her wipe at the stuff she hacks up to know that blood will stain her fingers when she reaches for him again.

The Parks department is empty — weirdly so, but Ben supposes that with April and Donna taking hold of Animal Control and Tom switching back and forth between his business and the government, the place that once felt too much like home is now just what it is: a government bureau.

Leslie looks back at him and nods to Ron's office — empty, locked. 

"Maybe he's on an extended lunch break?" he offers, but Leslie looks half disappointed, and he's ready to drive all over town to find Ron Swanson just to make her satisfied.

She slumps her shoulders back and closes her eyes, shaking her head as she leans into Ben listlessly. "I don't know... Maybe I shouldn't—"

"Leslie? Ben?"

Of all the people to stumble in at that moment, Jerry could not be more fitting.  

"What's up, guys?" the man continues, an array of folders tucked underneath his arm and a box of donuts in his hand. He gestures to the conference room when neither of them reply and says, "I'm heading in there. Care to join me for some donuts? Felix copped a bunch of free ones — ah jeez..."

Somehow, the folders spill everywhere.

It's the first time Leslie laughs in a week.

.

"Oh, _God_ , Leslie."

It's a phrase Ben quickly grows tired of hearing.

.

Doctor Donahue doesn't have good news. 

(In retrospect, Ben will decide that she was never meant to be the bearer of anything good at all. Only, at best, someone to relay the ugly truth.)

"The chemotherapy is likely to not work. The cancer has too quickly metastasized, and it's only a matter of time before your body begins to shut down," the doctor says quietly. "I told you six months, initially. Treatment, so late in this stage? It'll extend your life to seven. _Maybe_."

Leslie just stares at the doctor. "Then I'll do it. I don't care."

"Ms. Knope," Dr. Donahue says, her voice more of a warning than sympathy. Or understanding. “Do you know the monetary ramifications of chemotherapy? Have you discussed this with your husband? At all?"

"We have," Ben says, even though they haven't  _actually_  discussed anything — but the decision is clear to him. The only decision, actually, at least from what he can tell. "A month more with Leslie is all I could ask for." 

Leslie holds his hand tightly. A thank you, if anything else.

.

Ron stares at Leslie for the longest time. And then: “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”

“I have terminal lung cancer, Ron.” She pauses, wetting her lips as she waits for him to respond. But he just looks at her blankly as if the news doesn’t quite reach him, so she tries again. “They think I have seven months left. A year, if I’m lucky.”

Nothing.

“I won’t be here a lot,” she adds, as if that’s anything of importance to him.

And then he nods. He nods and nods until he begins to shake his head. As if suddenly overcome with anger, he shouts, his voice quaking with an inexplicable fury that even Leslie — who knows his anger, knows how quick he is to scorn and slow he is to forgive — meets with surprise. “Get the hell out of my office, Knope.”

She stands. Her knees are wobbling in fear and this, she thinks, is the most he’s ever been mad, at her or otherwise. For a few seconds, his stare lingers until he tears his eyes away from her, settling his gaze on his hands folded in front of him.

Despite everything, she can’t bring herself to leave.

“Out,” he says after many moments of silence, and it’s a bit quieter but all the more forceful at the same time. “ _Please_."

So she does, heart breaking and bleeding and all.

. 

In the mirror, Ben stares at his wife with an electric razor in his hand and a handful of her hair in the other. Yellow is scattered around them, and she trembles in the chair in front of him as she begins to register what has just happened. He places a hand on her shoulder and gives a soft smile, leaning down to whisper in her ear, "You look absolutely ravishing, Leslie."

“Yeah?”

Her bravery is thin; he can see this in the way her breath comes out shaky between her pale lips. But he watches her eyes as they steel back into something courageous and decides that despite everything, Leslie has been nothing but good to him.

She knocks her cheek into his and holds his face closely, her thumb running along the stubble of his jawline and her breath sneaking past his. She sighs deeply, her chest rumbling with the ghost of a cough, her shoulders slumping forward as she tries her hardest to keep her breathing even.

To see his wife struggle is to die every time.

But Leslie manages a smile — a soft one, a sad one, but a smile nonetheless. 

“Yeah,” he confirms.

She closes her eyes and jokes, “Alright. Your turn, babe.”

.

Leslie insists that she's more than capable of continuing on with work. She bullies her doctor into agreeing with her — reluctantly — so long as she constantly takes her chemotherapy pills and rests the second her duties at City Hall are over. As with anything else that she has ever done in her life, Leslie fills binders with stacks of paperwork, each with information loaded concerning everything about lung cancer and how to go about it, and then everything dealing with impending death and how to confront a grisly topic like that. April calls it morbid —  _April_  — but Leslie calls it prepared. At this rate, the rest of her life will be just as productive as it has always been.

It works for little over a month and a half.

Somewhere down the line, Leslie forgets that terminal cancer entails dying, and that dying is not a dignified process. 

It only becomes apparent to her when she passes out mid-conference, her body collapsing out from under her, her breath ripped from the lungs that have begun to fail her completely.

When she wakes in the hospital, there is a distinct pain she knows won't ever go away.

.

The chemotherapy pills make Leslie vomit.

A lot, Ben soon finds out.

The Internet tells him that it's a normal side effect of chemotherapy, but that word has become so dirty to him lately because nothing about this is normal. 

Normal is not your wife, curled up in the middle of your bed at one in the afternoon, shaking from a fever she must've contracted somewhere, anywhere, her tremors nearly violent and you, standing in the doorway, helpless, and you, hopeless. It is not holding your wife close to you because she's wheezing in the middle of the night, screaming something sad about her lungs being afire and how she feels like she's drowning in her own air. It is not your wife's ribs crackling under your touch, her skin, sullen and yellow, slicked with sweat and swollen with tumors that have metastasized deep into her bone.

And it's not your wife, so usually bright and radiant and healthy, reduced to a patient in a hospital bed, her breath short and ragged and her living labored, her face pallid and her smile tired.

But Ben ignores the absence of normality as best as he can. When he holds the bin underneath her mouth so that she can vomit, it's all he can do to keep himself together.

.

Ann and Chris manage to come down about three months after the diagnosis. For their defense, Leslie and Ben hadn't told them until things were looking worse for wear, because neither of them wanted the Traegers to worry until they had to.

They never stop apologizing for having too messy of a life to pay attention to their social media; had they even logged on to Facebook once, they would've known earlier and visited sooner. Such a shame, Leslie thinks, that they'd have to see her in a hospital looking worse than Death instead of at home, where she wanted them to first see Cancer Leslie. Such a shame it had to be Ben to call them. Such a shame anything had to happen at all.

Ann is quiet when she comes in, her face worn with worry and the corners of her mouth are pulled into a reluctant smile. She pushes into the room hesitantly, as if Leslie herself is fragile enough to be broken by an interruption in Hospital Room Static. 

(When you're dying, you have all the time in the world to come up with terms for everything nameless.)

"Hey," Leslie says, pumping up her voice a little louder, back to the normal volume Ann is used to. She suppresses the nausea that comes with it. "How's Michigan? Fancy seeing you back here in Pawnee."

Ann wanders to the space beside Leslie, mumbles something like an apology, and starts crying. 

"I'm sorry," Leslie tells her, over and over again. Her eyes are dry but her sadness is so wet in her words that she grips Ann tighter and says, "I should've told you sooner, I'm so sorry."

.

Ben comes home to two missed calls from April and five from Donna. There is a voicemail, left by April’s cell phone, of Andy singing with whom Ben thinks is Leslie — apparently, the Ludgate-Dwyers had snuck in a visit after work.

He clicks “delete all” and doesn’t bother to call back Donna.

An empty house does things to you.

.

"She's lost so much weight," Chris observes, his voice thick with sorrow and his words revealing that there's nothing else he knows what to say.

Ben looks up and eyes the skeleton cradling Ann in the hospital bed, both women fast asleep as the visiting hours begin to tick to a close. 

With glassy eyes, Ben says nothing.

Chris leans over and gives Ben a hug.

(As if he hasn't had enough of those in the last few months.)

"Ann and I will stay here as long as it takes," Chris mumbles into Ben's ear, his promise genuine as he squeezes his shoulders comfortingly. He leans back, tears now apparent on his cheeks, racing down the contours of his face. "I swear to you. We'll move to Pawnee if it calls for that."

For the first time in the longest time, Ben is hopeful. 

.

There are days when Ben is gone — politics demands presence, and there is no use for a politician who is never there, even if his wife is dying.

It’s in between these business trips and after visiting hours that Leslie really buckles down and looks at the situation she’s in. Because — and there’s no denying it, because frankly she’d be a hopeless idiot should she try — life moves on even after you die. No one is going to stop for her. No one is going to give up just because she’s dead. And no, she doesn’t want anyone — _especially_ Ben — to cease being because of her. But it’s a shitty thought to have, no matter which way you cut it. 

So how should she presume? Because dying or not, Leslie Knope abhors the idea of being useless.

A thought:

“Chris? Are you — no, I am fine. Just, when you stop by — Chris, I am _fine_ , get it together man — okay, before you stop by, go into me and Ben’s room, bring an empty binder, a stack of scrapbooking paper, all of my pictures with Ben, some scissors, glue, and a few glitter pens. No questions! Just do as I say.”

.

“You think he’ll like it? It’s for when I’m already gone.”

Chris shifts a bit on the hospital bed to peer at the binder in her lap. After flipping through the first few pages, he gives a sad smile and nods. “Of course.”

“Are you sure?” Leslie holds up her left hand. “Crafts are a bit tough when you’re hooked onto a machine.”

“I’m sure,” he says, reaching out to rub the back of her head. When she returns a feeble smile, he murmurs, “He’ll love it, Leslie.”

.

Leslie shudders every time she breathes. Ben stares at her with pity swollen in his eyes, his fingers entangled in hers and both of them occupying the small space her bed allows; he gives a weak smile that she struggles to match.

"Hey, Leslie," he tells her, and she can smell coffee on his breath and City Hall on his loosened tie. Things she misses, as it turns out.

"Hey yourself," she murmurs, releasing his fingers that were still between hers to cradle his head between her hands. "I missed you. How was Indianapolis?"

"Lonely," he tells her. "It was a boring two days without you. And I half-expected Chris to show up and hitch a ride with me back to Pawnee, banjo-playing and all."

Leslie gives a real laugh and snorts, the catheter between her chest popping out of behind her hospital gown as she does so. 

"He didn't, did he?"

"Oh, God no," Ben says, making a face as if that was the most absurd thing he's heard. "You think April would let him do that? From what I hear from Ann, holing up with April and Andy has effectively neutered Chris. April has him on a leash."

Leslie grins. "She told me that she has Chris hollowing out books and filling them with jelly. Told him it has therapeutic effects on the chakras, and he believed it. Can you imagine that? Chris on a sofa carving out pages of Harry Potter and pouring Smuckers into the hole. Probably saying something like April Ludgate-Dwyer, I can  _literally_  feel tensions leaving me."

Ben shakes with laughter and the both of them knock heads together in their episode. She yelps in pain and purses her lips from the mild ache arising from the afflicted place on her forehead.

"Oh no," Ben whispers, the ghost of his laughter lining his words as he rubs her temple soothingly. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she hums, leaning into his touch as he runs his index finger down her cheek to tip her jaw forward. "Really, I am."

He pecks her quietly, his lips barely touching hers. "Good. Very good."

"I love you," she says. Closing her eyes, she repeats, a little more emphatic when she reaches to grip the crook of his neck. "I love you. So much. So much."

"I love you too," he tells her, and the way he says it makes her feel like dying is a wonderful thing. He gives her another kiss and says, "I'll see you tomorrow, okay? I have an early meeting. But I'll come right after that."

She doesn't open her eyes. Just says, "Okay," and feels him press his lips against her forehead before she lets him go. His side of her bed becomes lighter, and suddenly, she is alone again. 

What a life, she thinks bitterly, turning on her side to face the window, to live as a dying woman in a hospital bed. 

.

It's a bad day when Ron comes in.

It's been about four and half months since she told him, so it's been about four and a half months since they last spoken.

He trudges in with his head bent in reverence and she tries to stop her breathing from being too irregular, her nasal cannula from being too obvious, her body from being too skinny. But none of these can be helped and there she is, hooked up to machines with an extra small gown looking like a baggy tee shirt and her breathing making her sound like she's begging for a good breath.

Ron drags a chair and places it right up next to her bed, then takes a seat and looks at her at long last.

"Hi, Ron," she says, but she regrets the words as soon as they leave her mouth because after not talking for days and spending the night in surgery for a last minute procedure to drain her lungs of fluid, her voice is left ragged and worn.

He looks alarmed. Saddened. He points to her uneaten breakfast and says, "Not hungry?"

"No," she replies, and she doesn't have the heart to tell him that she hasn't eaten properly in a week. Only when Ben practically begged her to eat something. Only when JJ came by to drop off waffles Tom had ordered for her — and that, only because JJ wanted to see her fill her stomach with real food, and not saturate her body with IV fluid.

But even then. Her stomach had nearly ejected the food had it not been for the nausea medication the nurses had forced up her veins.

"Oh," he says, and the conversation is so stilted and so awkward that Leslie feels the discomfort under her skin.

It wasn't like this before.

"Ron—" she begins, but something in her chest begins to ache and she has to grip the sheets to steady herself. Fuck, she thinks as a wave of nausea rolls through her, and of all the days to want throw up, it had to be the day Ron chooses to visit her for the first time in months.

Ron stands quickly."Is everything okay?"

"Yep, just dandy," she says, but her face must depict something else because Ron looks absolutely terrified. Another wave of nausea hits her and she shoots up, her hand pointing frantically to a clean bin left on her bedside table.

He shoves the thing into her hands and she retches, her nearly empty stomach forcing up remnants of JJ's waffles from three days ago. Minutes of her whole body seeming to convulse, of her throat aching under the burn of stomach acid, of her fingers slacking around the edges of the bin, go by until she registers that Ron has one hand massaging her back and his other holding the bin for her.

When she's done, she looks at at him and he's already handing her a glass of water to wash her mouth.

She takes it and offers a small smile. "Thank you—"

"I'm sorry."

He chokes on his words and sits back down as soon as he places the now soiled container back on the bedside table.

"You know—the office is empty without you. I—" he stops to look at her properly, and for the first time Leslie sees tears in his eyes. "Ann tore me a good one when she found out that I hadn't visited you yet. Told me that if I wasn't to soon that... you'd die without me saying goodbye. That I wouldn't forgive myself if I let that happen.

"Of course, I didn't believe that. What the nurse said sounded like a bunch of bullshit, sounded like a ploy to get me to visit the hospital for no good reason. I don't — I imagined you as healthy, Leslie, for no other reason than to probably protect myself. Terminal lung cancer didn't sound real to me. It didn't until Andy started showing me pictures of you and him for a few weeks ago and..."

The rest of that sentence goes unfinished, because Leslie gets up and stumbles out of bed and throws her arms around Ron. The man doesn't hesitate to return the embrace and does so wholeheartedly, wrapping her small body with a hug, burying his face into her shoulders when he realizes she's not going to be letting go for awhile.

He starts crying, then, and what's there to do when Ron Swanson is sobbing into your chest?

"It's okay, Ron," she says, her voice cracking when she feels him pull her even closer. "I forgive you, it's okay."

The IV in Leslie's wrist drags slightly when she lifts a hand to cradle his head, but it's not a pain she's not used to and consoling Ron takes more importance than sating her discomfort. Besides, she's crying something ugly and she's wondering if there's someone she can bargain with to get a few more years tacked onto her life.

But the fervent ache in her chest reminds her that the death has no favors to grant the dying and bargaining is a stage of grief she hasn't quite reached yet.

So she hugs Ron tighter and laments the day she won't be here to do this for him.

.

A month, that's what Doctor Donahue says.

Leslie has never felt so down in her life.

.

Ben takes the whole day off to watch Marley and Me with Leslie in the hospital bed.

It isn't enough to make her feel better.

"We should've gotten a dog," Ben tells her her, rubbing his thumb over hers as he brings her hand to rest on his stomach. "Would've been fun."

Leslie doesn't say anything. Ben glances at her and just sees her staring blankly at the screen, her face devoid of emotion and her eyes glazed over with apathy. 

It's the second time in his life he's been this terrified.

.

April glares at Leslie. Crossing her arms flat on her chest, April looks pointedly at the plate of food on the tray in front of Leslie. "Eat."

"What's the point?" 

"You'll starve to death," April says, frowning. 

Leslie only shrugs. "I'm dying anyway." 

.

A week passes and Ben is barred from staying in the same bed as Leslie. Something about her getting sicker if she spends too much time next to him.

It doesn't matter because all Leslie has been doing is sleeping. A little laboredly, perhaps, but sleeping nonetheless. So all Ben has been doing is watching her from the chair situated across her bed, occasionally dozing off or doodling in his notepad, but usually just observing her movements from afar.

Chris comes in once to join him.

Aside from formalities, the two men spend hours stretched in silence. The only noises to grace their ears are the faint beeps from Leslie's heart monitor and her ragged breaths with every time she turns. Ben is used to such sounds — Chris, however, is rendered uncomfortable by the way Leslie breathes, and looks as if he's trying to figure a way out to fix it.

"You can't," Ben says after some time. It is already dark, and the night shift nurses start to shuffle in and the day shift begin to disperse; Ben is tired, his face held up by his hand, his elbow propped up on the armchair, one leg tucked under the other as he tries to stay comfortable. 

Chris glances at him. "Can't what?"

"Fix it," Ben replies simply. "Fix Leslie, or me. I know you want to. But you can't."

A silence settles again.

And then:

"Can I tell you something?" 

Ben raises an eyebrow. "Shoot."

"Your wife is a beautiful person. From the second I met her, I just knew: she was absolutely gorgeous, quite _literally_ one of my most favorite women to talk to and look at. Second to Ann, of course. 

"When you two got together, I couldn't be more happier for you. Of course, I was a little disappointed it was under such circumstances but it all worked out — anyway. For eleven years I travelled in Indiana with you, auditing and balancing budgets and boring financial stuff. I spent the better part of that decade and a tenth lugging around this Mean Old Ben and failing every time to make you happy for more than a day. But that changed when we arrived in Pawnee for the first time. You know, I remember the day we met her — you couldn't stop talking about her. Yeah, it was about how insufferable and stubborn she was, but I never saw you get so rilled up about a girl like that.

"I thought, you know, maybe it's just cause for the first time in ages, we get a government girl who's easy on the eyes and interesting to speak to, or about, or you know, everything in between. But you tried so hard to make things good for her. I've never seen you be that generous to someone in any of the towns we worked in. Any."

Ben remembers Leslie's first smile that he put on her face. He remembers thinking that he could spend the rest of his waking life doing that and more. "She was something," he says, her voice quiet and weak and he's so afraid he just might break then and there.

Chris makes a noise of agreement. "She was. Is. Ben, this woman right here — she's made you so much better. Don't let this situation impede what she's done for you. What you've done together."

Ben stiffens when Chris reaches over to put both hands on his shoulders. "Ann and I are moving in, okay? Oliver is going to stay with Ann's mother until all of this...blows over. We're going to make sure everything is fine. Okay? Say okay, Ben."

And what's there to even say when Chris Traeger is shaking you by the shoulders, trying to coax an answer out of you?

"Okay," Ben says at last. "Okay."

.

Doctor Donahue says that it's best to move Leslie back home and Ben could not agree more. Mainly because the hospital was just getting her sicker and the house was getting so lonely without her, but still. He'd love to have her by his side again.

He carried Leslie in like he did so the night of their wedding, but it's different in that now Leslie's a good 40 pounds lighter and with an oxygen cannula hooked up her nose, and that instead of them kissing their honeymoon away, Leslie is half asleep in his arms and he's too drained to even think about anything beside passing out the second his back hits their bed.

When he sets her down on her side, she stirs awake. Her smile languid and her words melting in his ears, she says, "Hey," and he honestly feels like he's losing a war here.

"Hey yourself," he replies, settling himself on his stomach and propping himself up on his elbows to look at her properly. "Good to have you home."

"Good to  _be_  home," she returns, reaching for him with limp hands. She takes his face with nimble fingers and rubs at the faint scruff of hair that has found its way on his jawline. "You need a shave, mister."

"I thought you like facial hair," he says, knitting his brows together as he pulls her to him so that his chin rests on her stomach. "Coulda sworn you were mumbling about Ron's mustache in your sleep last night."

"Bullshit," she says, laughing when Ben tips his face downward to brush his lips against the skin at her hips. “You know what I think? I think you're just lazy."

"Well, it's hard to keep up with menial things like that without you reminding me every morning."

"Oh, Ben," she says, sighing when he climbs to lay closer next to her, when he manages to slink his arms around the tubes that have become a third guest in their bed to cradle her waist. "What are you going to do when I'm gone?"

She might've expected an answer — it's Leslie, after all, and she's all about planning ahead and knowing what the next step is. But he doesn't answer this question, just mumbles loving nonsense into her ear as she falls back to sleep, just listens to her breathe before he drifts off too.

.

When Ben realizes that his wife will be dead in a matter of weeks, it is during their second anniversary, and they are dining in their bed, all dressed up in formal wear because — as Leslie had put it — why not?

And under different circumstances, they would be enjoying their second anniversary and being on their bed for much different reasons. But the thing is, Leslie looks like she’s in so much pain and has vomited up half of her dinner and Ben cannot even fathom the thought of her side of the bed being empty for longer than he’s used to. 

It’s so selfish, he thinks, because here’s Leslie trying to put on a brave face and pretend that she isn’t agonizing, while he’s here looking stupid in his tuxedo eating for two because —

_Fuck_.

“Babe,” Leslie croaks out, and there it is, ladies and gentlemen, more evidence that she is nothing but suffering and here’s he — “Babe, stop, what’s wrong?”

“I’m fine,” he says, but he’s obviously not, because he’s sweating buckets and his muscles are tensing and he can’t even move — even though he’s scattering himself everywhere, piece by piece crumbling off of him as he tries to collect himself — “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine.”

_God_.

Leslie reaches over to him, and he folds himself into her lap, his hands gripping at her dress when he feels her fingers smoothing through his hair. She leans over and says, “It’s okay, you’re okay, we’re okay. Come back to me.”

And it’s just so unfair.

Just so fucking unfair. 

“We’re okay,” she repeats. But her voice is caught in a cough and her whole body shakes and her fucking lungs are failing again and Ben just grips the fabric in his hands tighter.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her, when his breath returns to him at last. He buries his face into her lap and says, “I’m sorry,” again, this time with a little more conviction — but of course, it does nothing to stifle his own sobs or calm her own tears.

Unfair.

That’s all this is.

.

Ann comes into his office crying about Leslie being so close to the end.

He doesn’t let anyone in, after that.

.

The awful thing about dying is that you can’t be more than pretty much dead. The other thing — once you’re already there, you can’t tell anyone. It’s the best kept secret, if Leslie does say so herself.

She knows it’s already here when Ben spends the night in their bed after a week of being told by Ann to not breathe the same air as her for fear of getting her even sicker. Because Ben’s arms feel like darkness and the tears that spill onto her shoulders are no more alive than she is — Ben mumbles and mumbles his love into her ear, into her skin, and his hands hold onto hers, and everything is goodbye.

The tragedy is that her lungs do not give her enough breath to say anything back to him. They do not allow her to give Ben what he deserves to hear from her, one last time.

And she’s not —

.

“I’ll see you,” she says.

.

Ben sits in his car for hours. The binder full of her goodbyes sits in his lap.

That’s all.

.

He doesn’t know how he arrives here. He’s pretty sure it has to do with Ron, who is descending down the steps to his right, or maybe with Donna, who stands next to him, holding him upright by his arms, crying something silent as she tries to not look at him. To his left — there’s Leslie, lying still in a coffin wearing her favorite red sundress, closed casket because Cancer Leslie is nothing Alive Leslie would ever approve of.

Right. Funeral — Ben swallows, his head spinning as he shrugs off Donna’s help. 

“M’okay,” he says, but his voice is amplified and all of the sudden he is seized with panic because half of Pawnee is staring at him with wet eyes, waiting for him to speak about his dead wife.

The thing is this: his mind is blank, his mouth is dry, and he has no idea where to begin.

He scans the audience first to gather his thoughts. He first sees Marlene, who been quiet throughout the ordeal, speaking nothing of her own emotions and making sure that Leslie was okay, and then Ben himself. He sees her eyes bloodshot and her hands twitching in her lap -- no mother should have to bury their child, but here she is, trying to make the best out of things.

Ben figures he can't stand to see Leslie's family at this point, so he looks for familiar faces instead.

Jerry and his family are down in front -- Jerry himself is crushed with tears, his face red and puffy as Gayle, too, is overcome with emotion. His eyes fall onto Tom, whose own are buried with tears and are fixed on the crucifix hanging above Ben's head. Then to April, who has folded herself neatly into Andy's side. Next to them are Chris and Ann -- when Ben settles his gaze onto Ann, his heart lurches, because all of her is all of Leslie, and what could he even say that would suffice? 

What was Leslie?

It's clear who she was to the Parks department. Painfully clear. And nothing he could say could ever heal them.

But what was she to him?

What was Leslie?

“Leslie was my life,” he manages, voice catching as the rest of what he was about to say dies in his throat. His vision clouds as he turns his face away from the podium and towards the casket — running a hand over his face, he clears his throat and says, “She was my everything.”

He can’t bring himself to say any more.

.

Ben stands by her grave idly, kicking at the dirt around her gravestone and avoiding the words _Leslie Knope-Wyatt, beloved wife, daughter, friend, and dedicated public servant_ that have been carved into the limestone.

Hands shoved in his pockets, he speaks up at long last.

“You weren’t supposed to go first, Knope.”

.

_"We have a deal, Knope?"_

_"That you die first? Ben, I wasn't serious."_

_"But I am. Deal?"_

_"...Deal."_

.

Fin.

**Author's Note:**

> Told you it was sad.
> 
> Inspiration: Kettering by the Antlers, My Sister's Keeper, and my knack of making even the happiest of TV shows into something tragic.


End file.
